Summertime Tire Buying Advice: New Bridgestone’s For Your Family

Auto Central June 22, 2011; It amazes The Auto Channel editors that the most important safety component of your car—tires—often remain a mystery despite every car owner spending $500 or more every few years.

You know the cost of a Caramel Macchiato in calories and dollars; the tradeoffs for Nike versus Ping drivers; or how to score flattering jeans in under ten fittings. Tires, not so much.

If you’d welcome “free” tires or a bit of tire tire-buying advice, Bridgestone recently launched new products: run-flat tires, high performance summer and all weather tires, and "green" tires that end up saving their purchase price. One might be the best choice for your vehicle.

Third-generation Run Flat tires.

Many new BMW 3 or 5 Series, Lexus SC430s, MINI Coopers, Corvettes, and the all-wheel drive Toyota Sienna minivan were equipped with second generation run flat tires. Owners reported an unexpectedly hard ride and those miraculous run flat tires and didn’t last as long as expected. True, they delivered on their safety and security message of “run for 50 miles at 50 miles per hour to a safe location.” Still, you never felt like the car delivered all its high-price goodness. That's why many car owners dumped run-flats and bought conventional tires. Bridgestone’s third generation Potenza RE960 All Season Pole Position RFT tire address those issues in novel ways.

First, Bridgestone added tiny cooling fins to the tire sidewall to agitate the air next to the sidewall. It’s strong sidewalls that support a deflated run flat tire, their secret. Sidewalls and tread use proprietary Bridgestone NanoPro technology to generate less heat regardless of inflation pressure. It is heat, particularly when under inflated, that prematurely wears your tires.

We tested the new Potenza RE960AS PP RFT run flat tire on BMW 3-Series, properly inflated and at zero pressure. Frankly, it was difficult to tell the difference. Even when driven in smooth turns, sharp corners, or over rough pavement there was little increase in steering effort or tire noise, and the tires felt like conventional tires. Because of these improvements, for the first time ever, Bridgestone offers a 40,000 mile limited tread warranty.

Bridgestone goes Green and saves green.

Bridgestone’s Ecopia EP422 and Dueler H/L 422 light truck tires are fuel efficient, environmentally sustainable, come in 29 auto and 19 CUV-SUV-light truck sizes—and did we mention they’re “free”?

Yes, free! Replace worn tires with a set of Bridgestone Ecopia EP422 or Dueler’s and their predicted 4% fuel saving should pay off in about four years. 4% doesn’t sound like enough for that caramel macchiato, but the math proves otherwise.

After filling your tank multiply the cost by 0.96 and 52 (or 40-60 based on how often you usually fill up). Ecopia EP422s should save my family at least $195/year based on average 14.7 gallon tank-fills 60 times a year. That’s $3,582 and 4% would save $195 each year at $4 per gallon. Yep, free tires in four years.

Ecopia tires use “nanostructure-oriented properties control technology” to control how tread rubber, polymers, carbon black and other compounds interact at the molecular level. Silica is added to improve wet weather traction, and “fuel saver sidewalls” flex less to lower rolling resistance. Tested on a BMW 3 Series and a Cadillac Escalade they felt like conventional tires, unlike earlier low rolling resistance tires which typically feel hard and slippery.

New high performance tires for your hot car.

It is not news that a man, or woman’s car might be a BMW, Audi A4, Porsche Boxter, Mustang, or other high performance automobile. Beyond practical reasons like resale value and lifestyle expression are the thrills of acceleration and fast cornering. When it’s time to replace high performance tires your decision to buy All Season, Summer-only, or thinly disguised race tires depends on where you drive.

A Porsche-owning person in Tucson and Mustang Sally in Toledo have very different purchase considerations. Both could buy a super-sticky summer tire like Bridgestone’s new flagship Potenza S-04 Pole Position and drive with supreme confidence until winter, then the northerner would exchange her wheels and tires for a set of Blizzak snow tires. More practical is a premium All Season tire, like the new RE970AS Pole Position.

We tested both against Best-In-Class leaders from Pirelli and Michelin and found the Bridgestone tires offer better response and traction, particularly in wet weather. Driving Audi S4’s through maneuvers, like evading neighborhood joggers or oblivious highway lane-changers, the S-04s were quicker and stuck harder in sudden cornering. Switching to a water soaked track and BMW 3s, the all weather RE970 AS gripped wet pavement more aggressively, making turns more assured.

A very few drivers (or their vehicles) will require Bridgestone’s R-11, a thinly disguised race tire that sticks to pavement like Lindsay to jewelry. We compared this tire against the excellent RE 970 and S-04 at modest racing speeds. Wow! It’s like running your next Komen 5K in Nikes instead of flip-flops. That said, less than 1% of car owners would benefit from this tire unless they race on weekends—or demand ultimate performance, daily, from their vehicle.